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BIR now monitoring non tax-paying DavNor, Comval politicians

sept 2-8, 2010

By Cha Monforte, Rural Urban News

The Bureau of Internal Revenue office in Tagum City covering Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley provinces is now on the process of monitoring who are those May 10, 2010 candidates who have not yet paid the five-percent withholding and value-added taxes taxes chargeable against their campaign expenditures in the last polls.

“We are now monitoring them based on the information we have although we’re still waiting for the Comelec’s list,” said Daisy Franco, assistant revenue district officer of the BIR revenue district office 112 based in Capitol complex, Mankilam, Tagum City.

She added that the monitoring is being done by BIR-RDO 112’s collections agents assigned in the two provinces.

But it would seem that the local BIR’s efforts are being snagged by the continued failure of Commission on Elections provincial offices to furnish BIR-RDO 112 with official list of the statements of election contributions and expenditures of the candidates of the last May 10 polls.

Earlier, BIR 112 district revenue officer Manuel Trias Jr said that they were waiting for the Comelec’s list so they could commence actions in pursuing non-tax paying candidates, both winners and losers, for them to pay the 5-percent withholding tax and 12-percent value-added tax that should be levied against their actual election expenditures.

He said he had already requested the Comelec for it over a month ago.

He also earlier said that the BIR would pursue those who have not yet paid the taxes and those who understated their election expenditures vis-a-vis the actual expenditures assessed by the BIR.

The BIR would conduct a sort of probe on the candidates’ expenditures by comparing the statements of contributions and expenditures they submitted to the Comelec against the actual payments that went to their suppliers of election materials and services such expenses in the printing press.

If found out to be understated, Trias said, the BIR would then bill the concerned candidates regadless whether they won or they lost in the last polls.

The BIR was again implementing last election its tax laws and rules covered by the “Iboto Mo” tax collection campaign where candidates have to pay and remit 5-percent withholding taxes and 12-percent Value Added Tax (VAT) levied to their campaign expenditures.

In the “Iboto Mo” tax rules, candidates are deputized to be collection agents and therefore directed to deduct and retain the taxes due to the government in their election expenditures and remit these to the BIR after the polls.

In the first week of last July, BIR 112 released to this paper official figures indicating that only 221 poll candidates have paid the 5-percent withholding taxes. Their combined payments grossed P649,456.10.

In the BIR list, a few poll winners were mentioned to have already paid their 5-percent withholding taxes including Davao del Norte Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario who paid the highest with his P60,220 and his son District 1 Cong. Anthony del Rosario who separately paid P27,112.05 and P3,307.

In terms of places, Tagum City paid the highest with a gross of P120,537.59 from still candidates in the area who paid the taxes. On the other hand, Mabini town of Comval paid the lowest with a gross of P2,829.20. (Rural Urban News/Cha Monforte)